How bad is 5ghz through walls

je1983

Distinguished
Jul 17, 2016
135
0
18,680
I have an ac 1300 pci-e card on my new pc. I would like to upgrade my 300M 2.4ghz wifi router with something faster. Right now using wifi I get about 50-60Mbps using this combo with my 1000M connection (really mostly 500M).

My pc is 2-3 feet from the router separated by a wall. There's also a door around the corner that will occasionally be left open.

I'm wondering if I upgrade the router to an ac 1200 or 1300, I get roughly the same 2.4ghz speeds between 300-400Mbps depending on which one I get.. I'm wondering if I could get a good amount of the claimed 840+Mbps of the 5ghz speeds or if the wall would be too much of an obstacle and lower the connection speeds significantly.


I'm thinking of getting the TP-Link archer c59 which is a 1300ac router and half the price of the archer c7. Also looking at a dlink 1200.
 
Solution
The larger part of the problem is likely your end device. It has to be able to send the signal back though those walls also. Solid concrete is the worst case, it can easily block any wireless signal completely. 5g signal is much more easily blocked by concrete than 2.4g

Do not be confused by big numbers. The power that is transmitted has nothing to do with those numbers. Almost every router on the market transmits near the legal maximum. As long as you stay with the large brands you can expect they transmit at full power.

The difference in the numbers is related to how they encode the data into the signal and how many overlapping signals they attempt to transmit. If we ignore the wall issue, router that claim numbers like 1750...
If the wall is just a plain drywall (gypsum board), an ac router will almost certainly be faster at that range - if the wall is anything else, it's hard to say, but an ac router will probably still be faster. The C59 will be a little faster, even as a 2.4 GHz 802.11n router, than what you have now.
 

je1983

Distinguished
Jul 17, 2016
135
0
18,680
I'm on the 10th floor of a 40 floor building, no drywall here, just concrete and rebar. The wall is a little over 12 inches thick I don't know if i should be taking a chance on the lower end models or go for the 1750ac ones which offer faster speeds and might be able to penetrate better.
 

Samer1970

Admirable
BANNED
try to position the router near the door in the router room ..

as for which router is better .. you better read a review that tests the performance on each range , like 1m , 2m , 3m , 20m, etc

Specs of the router are not good representative. needs to be tested .
 
The larger part of the problem is likely your end device. It has to be able to send the signal back though those walls also. Solid concrete is the worst case, it can easily block any wireless signal completely. 5g signal is much more easily blocked by concrete than 2.4g

Do not be confused by big numbers. The power that is transmitted has nothing to do with those numbers. Almost every router on the market transmits near the legal maximum. As long as you stay with the large brands you can expect they transmit at full power.

The difference in the numbers is related to how they encode the data into the signal and how many overlapping signals they attempt to transmit. If we ignore the wall issue, router that claim numbers like 1750 are assuming they can transmit 3 overlapping signals cleanly. It sound good but has diminishing returns as you go above 2 signals. Now to even attempt this your end equipment must also have 3 antenna which is not real common.
 
Solution

rob0976

Distinguished
Oct 22, 2009
22
0
18,510
I have plaster walls am I 5G works really well and now that I have a range extender added my 5G signal went from 73% to 100% so it is still better to use 5G so all these guys sing 2.4G would be better is assuming you have crappy Hardware I've got all updated stuff. If you do have crappy Hardware and or low internet speed I suggest updating all of it!
 

kanewolf

Titan
Moderator


This is a 2 1/2 year old solved thread. Please don't resurrect dead threads. Thread closed.